


What You Won't Do

by Juniper11



Series: This Ninja Has a Hood [2]
Category: Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), Justice League - All Media Types, Naruto
Genre: Discussions of Murder, Friendship, Gen, Jason Todd Has Issues, Kidnapping, Mayhem, Mischief, Murder, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Sakura Haruno has issues too, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:47:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26565334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juniper11/pseuds/Juniper11
Summary: do for love.Or,What happened when Jason took Sakura to the strip club that one time.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Jason Todd
Series: This Ninja Has a Hood [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932028
Comments: 3
Kudos: 46
Collections: Time Travel and World Travel





	What You Won't Do

**Author's Note:**

> Juniper suffers from insomnia. To combat this she tells herself stories to put herself to sleep. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Most of the time those stories are forgotten by the time she wakes up. But not always. This is one of those works.

The music was so loud that Sakura could feel the reverberations in her chest. They had just arrived at the club Jason had promised to take her to. Sakura cast a genjutsu over them to make them less conspicuous—especially since Jason had opted to leave on his helmet. Sometimes, it wasn’t easy to hide Jason, and he never bothered to help matters. She had a feeling it was on purpose.

They chose a table that wasn’t too close to the stage but still had a good view. Sakura pulled her chair as close to Jason as she could get before asking, “Are you ready to tell me the real reason you got me out of Watchtower duty?” 

“It gave me an excuse to piss off the Big Bird—and potentially the Bat.”

Sakura’s lips twitched because she knew about Jason’s history with his family. It was terrible in the past, but they currently had a pretty solid truce going on since Jason had mostly stopped killing criminals. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to use every opportunity he received to give them a hard time.

“That’s not the only reason.” Sakura knew then that he kept the helmet on to hide from her. She did not doubt that he was grinning right now. Sakura pinched his arm lightly. “You’re such a jerk, Hood.”

“Yeah, but you love it.”

Sakura rolled her eyes but didn’t deny it because she couldn’t. She thought Jason was hilarious. She didn’t press any further as a dancer had just made her way onto the stage. Jason’s posture didn’t shift per se, but she could sense the change in his focus. Sakura glanced at the dancer. She was pretty in a way that Sakura never could be. Her legs were long and shapely. Not a bit of fat could be seen, and Sakura was studying hard to find it. Her hair was dark, short, and curly, and her eyes were an intense blue. Sakura looked at the dancer to Jason and back again. She wondered whether it was a coincidence that the woman seemed ridiculously similar in appearance to Wonder Woman.

“Do you know her?”

“I know all the dancers.”

Sakura let the silence settle over them and watched the girl dance. She was skilled and very flexible if the amount of money thrown her way was an indication. Sakura glanced at Jason again, suspiciously. 

“Take off your helmet. No one will notice if you do.” Hood knew she wasn’t lying, but he still hesitated. “Hood,” Sakura said softly, but Jason acquiesced thereafter. Sakura studied his face and didn’t understand what she was seeing. It made her heart race for some inexplicable reason. 

“Hood, why are we here?”

“Can we be overheard?”

Sakura made a few gestures. “Not anymore.”

“Human trafficking ring. They take children. An informant told me that the ring leader likes to frequent this club. One of the dancers thinks he took her daughter.” Sakura’s head swung back to the stage and paled. It was the dancer on stage’s daughter. Sakura thought about how she would feel if someone stole a child of hers. She’d burn the world to the ground to find her, and then if she couldn’t…she might destroy it. Sakura placed a hand on her empty womb, suddenly glad that she didn’t have any children for anyone to use against her. “She never told anyone that she had a daughter. He only found out because he followed her home one night with intentions that were less than favorable.”

“Is she a—“

“No, but some of the other dancers are. She doesn’t need to. You see the money she can pull in just by dancing. He made assumptions about her character. When she turned him down, her daughter went missing.”

A wave of anger washed over Sakura that blinded her. She wasn’t sure what she would have done if she hadn’t felt Hood’s comforting touch on her hand. It brought her back from the dark place that she was seconds away from diving into. She took in a few deep breaths to calm herself. When she refocused on Jason, she could see this was hitting him harder than usual. It wasn’t unusual for Jason to lose it on people who hurt children. This was different, though, and she was sure she knew Jason well enough to figure out why.

“Hood, she looks like Diana.” Everyone knew the fondness that he had for Diana. Even Diana knew it. It was why she hadn’t beaten him into the ground for essentially pulling her pigtails every time he got the opportunity. It was why Diana had willingly called Jason to come to get Sakura when she needed to escape from Superman’s too probing questions. Jason did it maybe fifty percent for Sakura. The other fifty percent was because Diana asked him to. “Is that why…” Sakura let her question trail off. Was it why he was so focused on the woman? Was it why he seemed like he wanted to do anything he could to save her? Was he transferring his adoration of Diana onto this nameless woman?

“When I came back,” Hood began, and Sakura sat up straighter. Jason didn’t talk much to her about his return to Gotham. None of the family liked bringing up his reign of terror. “I knew the family was going to try and take me down. I also knew they wouldn’t be able to.” Sakura didn’t sense in arrogance in his tone, only cold, dry facts. She nodded her head, urging him to continue. “But the pit…the rage felt uncontrollable. Because of it, I had to accept that there was a chance that I would go too far and have to be put down.” Sakura made a distressed sound, and Jason’s hand that still rested on top of hers squeezed gently. “Batman would never do it. You know how he is about killing. He’d throw me in Arkham, and I’d rather die than go there, little ninja.”

“But you have better control now than you did then.” Sakura reasoned. “So, this is moot.”

“Better isn’t complete, little ninja. You know that.” Sakura did, but this was Jason. No one expected her to be rational about him. So she wasn’t. “If the time ever comes where I can’t stop, when I go too far, I need you to ask Wonder Woman to put me down.”

This was the missing emotion that she couldn’t identify—a bit of melancholy combined with resignation. It had been on Jason’s mind for quite some time. Sakura wondered why she had missed it? Had she deliberately blinded herself to this?

“If that happens, you know I’d—“

“I know you would, but what would happen to _you_ after that? What would killing me do to you?”

Sakura felt a tear hit her cheek. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself. Jason was the other half of her soul. She’d never survive it if she had to kill him, and he knew that. If he had to go, so would she. The ninja stood up abruptly. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“You’re the only person I can go to with this. You’re the only one who would listen besides her, and I can’t bring myself to ask her because I know she’d go to Batman about it and then he’d want to ‘talk.’”

Sakura forced herself not to tremble at the force of his attention. There was a pleading note in his voice that she usually gave into, but she couldn’t this time. Sakura looked back at the dancer. “She’s going to point him out?”

Jason just stared at her, silently willing her to cave. Sakura ignored him. Eventually, Jason sighed. “No. If you join her on the stage now, he’ll come to you.”

Sakura glanced at the dancer and transformed into a form that was similar to the dancer. She let her hair appear longer, though, brushing her shoulders. The ninja could tell that Jason forced himself not to flinch at her actions. He didn’t like it when she took other forms for reasons she didn’t know. She was too distressed to probe the issue just then and instead stalked toward the stage, letting those around notice her presence as she joined the dancer. 

Jason wasn’t a part of the League, and Sakura was. When there were instances where Red Hood had to work with the League, most of them didn’t like it. It was automatic when Hood came along on League business that he was working solely with Sakura. Additional members were sufficient as long as Sakura was included. To the others, it seemed like they rushed in without a plan and only made it out by the skin of their teeth. 

To Sakura and Jason, it was more like if Jason didn’t decide to walk in with guns blazing, then Sakura came up with a plan that was intuitive enough for Jason to follow. There were only two other people who could work with them with relative ease. One of those people was Batman; the other was Nightwing.

The dancer looked slightly startled when Sakura joined her. “Red says hello,” Sakura said softly, and the woman relaxed only to be awed later that the two of them were able to work the same pole together and with a grace that looked like they trained for years for it. The woman looked like she wanted to talk, but Sakura slightly shook her head. She didn’t know if anyone in the place could read lips, but she wasn’t taking the chance. 

* * *

Hood looks up at the place their perp had led Sakura to. He was outside on his bike, waiting for her to exit with the information they needed. He lit up a cigarette and inhaled. It didn’t usually take Sakura a long time to get information like this, but this time speed wasn’t on her side. He was seconds away from making a grand entrance and dragging her out when she exited the building covered in blood. 

He was surprised. Sakura didn’t typically kill anyone unless _he_ started it. So either the perp was in horrible shape, or he was dead. Jason tossed his cigarette to the ground, crushing it beneath his foot, and started his bike. He looked at the building expecting people to follow her in an angry rush at any second, but the building remained quiet. 

Sakura stopped in front of him, and he waited her out. If they had to run, she’d be on the back of his bike by now. So there was something more going on.

“He’s dead.”

Jason figured as much. He was also pretty sure that Sakura had tortured him to death, but he wasn’t one to throw stones. Given a chance, Jason might have done the same thing. There was a reason he liked having Sakura around. Still….

“Why?”

“You didn’t hear the things that he admitted to.” Jason clenched his fist and counted to ten to calm himself. When he opened his eyes, it was once again to see a blood-drenched Sakura with a shark-like grin. There wasn’t an ounce of regret in her being. He fucking loved her.

“Did you get the kids’ location?”

Sakura nodded, and Jason looked up at the building again. He lowered his head and raised his hand, wrapping it around the back of Sakura’s neck and pulling her close so that their heads touched. He watched Sakura close her eyes and then followed suit.

“I’ll do it.” The softly spoken words almost missed his ears. He didn’t pull back. If anything, he would have dragged Sakura closer if it were possible. “If the time ever comes where you’re irredeemable, I’ll speak to Diana.” A tension that Jason didn’t know was in his body eased at the words. Sakura wasn’t a liar. Well, she was, but she wouldn’t lie to him about something this serious. “I won’t tell Bruce, and I’ll make sure Diana doesn’t either. You’ve got to put it in writing though, Hood. Bruce will never forgive either of us if he doesn’t know that it’s your request. He probably won’t even forgive us then.”

“You let me worry about Bruce.”

“Jase,” Sakura began not pulling away, not bothered by being so close she was breathing his air. A part of Jason wished he could love Sakura in the romantic sense, but that was a line he couldn’t see himself crossing even if it would be so much easier to explain their bond that way. This was a relationship that he had never really had before with a woman. Even with Kori, things had crossed into a sexual nature even if briefly. Sure he flirted with Sakura, sometimes shamelessly, but never with intent. He knew Sakura felt the same way. He was sure she had feelings for someone else and wasn’t telling him about it.

Jason’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll handle it, Sakura. Trust me.”

“I’m trusting you never to put me in that situation in the first place.”

Jason’s lips quirked. “I think you’re the only person in the world that has _too much_ faith in me.”

Sakura pulled away slowly and climbed on the back of his bike. “There’s no such thing, Hood.” Jason passed her a helmet, and she readily put it on while he did the same.

“Did you want to clean up first?”

Sakura scoffed. “Why? Going like this will terrify our enemies and give us an edge.”

“Yeah, but, ew? Plus, it will be dry by the time we get there and nowhere near as effective.” Sakura wrapped her arms around Jason’s body and squeezed tightly, making sure to smear blood on his jacket. “Ah, ninja, come on. I love this jacket! Now it’s all nasty.”

“Don’t be a pussy.”

Jason snorted because Sakura had really been spending too much time around him. In some ways, they made each other better. In others, they were worse. “Sure thing, little ninja. I have no problem riding into battle traipsing about in the blood of our enemies if you don’t.”

Jason sped off as Sakura laughed merrily. 

**Author's Note:**

> It might be the ravings of a sleep-deprived lunatic but I like it. I think it explains a few things that happened in ATPT even if it raises a few more questions. 
> 
> It put me to sleep a few nights so I may appreciate it more. Especially since that one story that shall remain unwritten and hated that 'almost' put me to sleep but ended ridiculously tragically that woke me completely and had me awake all night asking myself, 'why did you do this to yourself?' and thinking, 'this is self-hate.'


End file.
